UPDATE: Due to a lack of eligible applications for the Women’s Mental Health Peer Support Hub in Wales, we are reopening this strand for applications.

Please note, we are not reopening the peer support delivery strand.

Applications to deliver Hub activity in Wales are now being accepted until 5 pm on 19 December 2018. For more information about the opportunity, and to access our online application portal please scroll down.

Please note: this opportunity is only available to women’s organisations with a track record in Wales. By women’s organisations we mean organisations whose primary purpose is to work for the benefit of women and girls as reflected in their governing documents.

Mind, the leading mental health charity in England and Wales, and Agenda, the alliance for women and girls at risk, are delighted to announce the launch of their £1.3m women’s mental health peer support grants programme.

The programme responds to the needs of women experiencing disadvantage, particularly multiple disadvantage, who are frequently under-represented in services. It builds on our experience of peer support approaches that we have seen reach women within their communities and that women value.

Peer support differs from other forms of mental health service and support in important ways. It happens when people who have similar experiences of something difficult come together to support each other. It is through this development of meaningful, two-way relationships that peer support works. Crucially, the people involved play an active role in creating a safe environment for each other.

Covering England and Wales, the programme aims to fund:

Organisations to facilitate peer support initiatives delivered for and by women experiencing multiple disadvantage. Multiple disadvantage is defined as women who experience several issues such as mental health problems, homelessness, drug and alcohol misuse, abuse and violence, offending, and family breakdown. They may have one main need complicated by other factors (eg race, sexuality, age or disability) or lower level issues which together combine to constitute multiple disadvantage.

'Women's Peer Support Hubs' - women's organisations working to improve the capacity of individuals and community based organisations to lead effective peer support activity delivered for and by women.

About the Fund

This programme will seek to fund and enable community-based peer support that reaches around 4,500 women. Work will be funded for a maximum of one year, and we expect to make between 80 and 90 awards through the following strands of funding:

1. Women's Peer Support Hubs

2. Peer Support delivery

Five capacity building ‘Hub’ grants of up to £50,000; four in England and one in Wales.

These grants will go to women’s organisations with specialist expertise of women with, or at risk of developing, mental health problems and experiencing multiple disadvantage, and who have the connections with community-based organisation to:

convene and deliver, in partnership with Mind, four capacity building workshops to grow local expertise in delivering women’s mental health peer support

establish and support local networks of practice

become centres of expertise and knowledge on women’s peer support

promote the value of women's peer support

facilitate peer support directly or indirectly.*

Around 30 grants of up to £25,000, and around 50 grants of up to £10,000 to facilitate peer support with women experiencing, or at risk of developing, mental health problems and experiencing disadvantage, particularly multiple disadvantage.

During the lifetime of the Fund, those receiving these grants will have the opportunity to take part in a series of learning events. These will be co-convened by the ‘Hubs’ and Mind and will support organisations to build and share knowledge about delivering peer support that works for women.

Grantees will also be part of an evaluation aimed at learning about what works for women, and will be supported by our evaluation partners and peer researchers to build evaluation skills to do this.

* Note: we are prepared to consider applications from women’s organisations who only wish to deliver the capacity building, network and knowledge development elements of the ‘Hubs’ strand without the direct or indirect peer support element. In such cases, the maximum grant available will be £25,000.

Through the programme we intend to fund a broad range of voluntary, predominantly women’s sector, organisations that are able to reach the women we want this work to support. All applicants will therefore need to demonstrate a track record of delivering services and programmes developed specifically for women facing complex social issues.

Organisations will be able to apply individually or in partnership, where the combined expertise enhances the ability to ensure more targeted reach, to engage women where they are, and to respond effectively to their mental health needs.

To find out more...

Download the applicaton guidance to find out more about the programme and how to apply.

Please note, the guidance was updated on 9 September to include a new note in the 'Eligible' costs section about the costs that those applying to the Hub strand of the Programme should and should not include in their budget for delivery of the four learning events.

Completing an application

Applications must be completed and submitted online through our application portal: mind.flexigrant.com

Do not use www.mind.flexigrant.com as this will not work

Any applications received via e-mail or the post will not be accepted, unless previously agreed with Mind’s Investment Team: [email protected]

Once you start completing an application form you can download your form at any time. A downloadable version, which shows the instructions for each question as they appear online will be available from this webpage on 1 September.

The recording can be downloaded here. We recommend you skip the first three minutes, and also the time from 6mins 45 seconds to 11 mins 30 seconds. The latter covers the time when we played a video about peer support. It has not recorded well and we recommend you use the url provided in the slide presentation.

2. 1 October: This webinar provided prospective applicants with an opportunity to ask further questions as they develop their proposals in advance of 15 October, the closing date for the programme.

Programme Timeline

Programme launch

23 August 2018

Deadline for applications

15 October 2018

Funding decisions communicated

Mid-December 2018

Funded activity start and completion

February 2019 – January 2020

Background

Funded by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport’s ‘Tampon Tax Fund’, the programme builds upon Mind’s previous peer support work. This includes the Big Lottery funded ‘Side by Side’ initiative, which has informed the development of Mind’s peer support toolkit. Download the peer support toolkit here.

The programme also responds to research undertaken by Agenda in collaboration with AVA (Against Violence and Abuse), which sought to better understand what services exist for disadvantaged women across England and Wales. The ‘Mapping the Maze’ report highlighted the significant gaps in mental health services that respond to women’s needs and recognise the trauma many women have experienced in their lives. Download the Mapping the Maze report from here.